Miracle Control

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Originally Posted by phg22

Why would surgical ever come in vs Shardless? Seriously, am I missing something?

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You shouldn't be missing anything. I thought drocker23 did a reasonable job explaining his point. I don't agree with the concept, but sometimes you will certainly get paid off for it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by drocker23

With all due respect, I believe you are wrong about surgical. Surgical is great against ANY deck looking to set up and find very particular cards. This applies to more than just combo matchups to disrupt the combo. The idea behind surgical is to disrupt their deck as a whole, not to just remove a win condition and say "I win". It doesn't work like that. You have to look at surgical as another angle of attack that will allow you to take control of the game. It's not an "i win" button and can be very effective at disrupting their deck as a whole causing them to be less consistent and run worse than you. Miracles is great at taking advantage of that.

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Partially agree.

One reasoning you didn't mention and I feel people often overlook is the bonus that you gain the knowledge of your opponent's hand AND you look through opponent's library. This knowledge is often under-rated, but a huge deal in SB games. I wouldn't do this against any decks that have Red in it and lightning bolt is a card he might run, even if he's playing a fair deck.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by drocker23

With all due respect, I believe you are wrong about surgical. Surgical is great against ANY deck looking to set up and find very particular cards. This applies to more than just combo matchups to disrupt the combo. The idea behind surgical is to disrupt their deck as a whole, not to just remove a win condition and say "I win". It doesn't work like that. You have to look at surgical as another angle of attack that will allow you to take control of the game. It's not an "i win" button and can be very effective at disrupting their deck as a whole causing them to be less consistent and run worse than you. Miracles is great at taking advantage of that.

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No.

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Originally Posted by twndomn

Partially agree.

One reasoning you didn't mention and I feel people often overlook is the bonus that you gain the knowledge of your opponent's hand AND you look through opponent's library. This knowledge is often under-rated, but a huge deal in SB games. I wouldn't do this against any decks that have Red in it and lightning bolt is a card he might run, even if he's playing a fair deck.

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And no.

There is a thing in magic called "being cute" and its pretty easy to see that these validations fall into that category. Leveraging Surgical Extraction as "disruption" in fair matchups is poor utilization of resources. In fair matchups you are looking to fight resource for resource and to navigate your cards based on whatever your game plan is. Using Surgical Extraction to "disrupt" Tarmogoyf or a Delver deck does not accomplish this. Going into a match, you as the Miracles player must have a specific game plan, not just "disrupt them and stay alive". For example, versus Shardless my game plan might be "Resolve/ride Jace" or versus Grixis Delver it might be "Clear board and lock them out with CounterTop". If I asked, "How does Surgical Extraction contribute to this game plan?", you wouldn't be able to give a proper answer because outside of graveyard hate, Surgical Extraction is fundamentally a highly volatile card. You have little control over what your opponent draws or how your opponent chooses to interact with you and therefore cannot guarantee that Extraction will succeed. At least other cards will trade with your opponents resources - which is the point that needs to be driven home. If your plan is to grind out, you do NOT want to start with a mulligan, even if it means getting to see your opponents hand and deck (which, by the way, is not even close enough of a pro to validate the con of losing a card).

Totally agree.

Drocker23 already answered the question anyway, 'Surgical is great against ANY deck looking to set up and find very particular cards.'

Neither Shardless or Aluren are looking to do this vs Miracles. Aluren doesn't need the combo to win, in fact after board it just grinds and utilizes Carpet of Flowers a lot more than Aluren itself. And Shardless is aiming to win with CA, nothing particular at all.

If you play 4 Mentor then I think the grinding gameplan is a joke. If you try to Plow, Snap Plow, and Terminus everything for 20-30 minutes, then I think you are going to run into issues. The majority of Miracles players will do the latter against Aluren which is why they will stick with the grinding approach post-SB, and those of us playing 4 Mentors will be well-positioned against that strategy.

What does everybody think about the Anti-Thalia?

http://227rsi2stdr53e3wto2skssd7xe.w...ain_EN_HRR.png

Personally, I don't think he slots in well enough with our gameplan since we'd just wrath him away eventually, but maybe someone else can think of a way he can be good in Miracles (without forcing him into the deck)? Or would he be better in a Stoneblade-type of control build.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

What does everybody think about the Anti-Thalia?

http://227rsi2stdr53e3wto2skssd7xe.w...ain_EN_HRR.png

Personally, I don't think he slots in well enough with our gameplan since we'd just wrath him away eventually, but maybe someone else can think of a way he can be good in Miracles (without forcing him into the deck)? Or would he be better in a Stoneblade-type of control build.

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I'm going to quote my friend mzfroste:
"Counterspell decks that would be willing to play a creature that isn't aggressive (so non-delver decks) like this tend to not have many targets for their opponents spot removal. Like a lot of cards this would be good in miracles in a vacuum, but it just isn't as powerful as other cards we are running. Don't need more cards that make the blue permission control plan better. That and miracles can't really take advantage of the cost reduction, only ETA, hardcast Fow / Terminus, and Predict."

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Originally Posted by AnziD

There is a thing in magic called "being cute" and its pretty easy to see that these validations fall into that category. Leveraging Surgical Extraction as "disruption" in fair matchups is poor utilization of resources. In fair matchups you are looking to fight resource for resource and to navigate your cards based on whatever your game plan is. Using Surgical Extraction to "disrupt" Tarmogoyf or a Delver deck does not accomplish this.

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I agree. As in, I don't see Surgical as a method of disruption whatsoever. When Counterbalance is no longer reliable in this so-called "fair" match-up, and when your opponent is better than you at valuing; when the best value-play you can do is flashback via Snapcaster, it would be nice to find other avenue to go about this.

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Originally Posted by AnziD

Going into a match, you as the Miracles player must have a specific game plan, not just "disrupt them and stay alive". For example, versus Shardless my game plan might be "Resolve/ride Jace" or versus Grixis Delver it might be "Clear board and lock them out with CounterTop". If I asked, "How does Surgical Extraction contribute to this game plan?", you wouldn't be able to give a proper answer because outside of graveyard hate, Surgical Extraction is fundamentally a highly volatile card. You have little control over what your opponent draws or how your opponent chooses to interact with you and therefore cannot guarantee that Extraction will succeed.

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This is where I feel the reasoning differs. If you want to criticize the card for the volatility because it requires your opponent's certain draw, that's totally fair. To try to use the I-must-follow-my-game-plan as the reasoning to not run a card, that's a stretch.

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Originally Posted by AnziD

At least other cards will trade with your opponents resources - which is the point that needs to be driven home. If your plan is to grind out, you do NOT want to start with a mulligan, even if it means getting to see your opponents hand and deck (which, by the way, is not even close enough of a pro to validate the con of losing a card).

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This might be another case of mis-using Surgical. I don't suggest anyone to cast Surgical on opponent's first fetch in the grave in the early turns, just because Surgical is in your opening hand and you want to see opponent's hand and deck.

Overall, I am just looking for ways to fight these Value Train BUG decks: Shardless BUG has overwhelming CA, BUG Aluren has the Value Train as well as key combo pieces. I might ultimately be wrong with my experiments, that won't be a first and I would like to keep my mind open.

Against Shardless, you just need to realize which cards matter: Ancestral Visions, Creeping Tar Pit and, from both players side, Jace, Sculptor of Minds.

A common theme is, as you can obviously tell, is that all of these cards are weak against Pyroblast.

Surgical does nothing against the cards that matter; You are planning to ride either Terminus > Jace or Entreat the Angels to victory against the fair BUG decks. Surgical doesn't help in the slightest there. It doesn't help in grindy matchups, it doesn't help further your own gameplan, which is what AnziD is talking about, I assume.

it might be slightly better vs BUG Aluren, because you don't even have to fear them topdecking an Aluren lategame and just winning, but they aren't playing Hymns, so you can manage your ressources much better there. Carpet is, imo, their best card in sideboarded games.

*I also think "Shardless is a bad matchup for miracles" is untrue. I think the matchup is close to 50/50, and very much rewards the person most familiar with the matchups.

I still play with 2x Entreat the Angels and my gameplan against Shardless is to either create a boardstate where Jace is free to do his thing or simply resolve an Entreat. Now I would never board a card like Surgical in against a deck like Shardless (there's no way to get the card they sandbag into their graveyard), but that Force of Will they're inevitably holding when I go to Entreat is always a problem. Their deck has more card advantage than Miracles once you take Counterbalance out of the picture, but Entreat ignores every 2-for-1 they've managed up until that point. My point is, an argument can be made that if Surgical wasn't so hard to pull off it could very well help to execute a gameplan. I haven't played much with Mentors against them, but if you Surgical Abrupt Decay, are they going to beat a Mentor? Abrupt Decay is an easy card to get into the graveyard, especially if you leave in Counterbalance. Again, I'm not suggesting Surgical is a good sideboard card in that matchup. Just think that in what's fundamentally a "Prison Control" deck like Miracles, you've got to keep an open mind about how certain cards can fundamentally change the dynamic of a game. You look at the sideboard of the "legends" builds and you see 50% lock pieces, for example. It would make for some interesting discussion to actually pick apart the contrasting strategies.

I think Surgical also gains value the worse a matchup gets. If you are losing anyway, it might occasionally allow you to get lucky. This happens often in Modern with Tron where the opponent has no realistic chance. If they board in surgical and somehow get a tron piece in the grave (thought scour or singleton ghost quarter maybe) then they can steal a game. There is probably some equivalent in legacy usage.

I played a fair amount against aluren over the last few days. My practice shows that the straight BUG version is not nearly as hard as I thought, but the recruiter builds are very difficult. Someone told me this was the reverse of their findings. I don't know what to think now.

I don't think Surgical is great against Shardless because of the speed at which they can kill you. Tarmogoyf, Tar Pit and Deathrite Shaman can close out a game pretty quickly. You don't have time to set up and durdle with cards like Surgical that don't do anything. You're often forced into the grind plan.

BUG Aluren, however, is much slower to kill, so you have time to set up cute tricks. I think Surgical is fine there. They're going to draw more cards than you anyway, so being behind a card isn't that bad. Using Surgical to lower their overall card draw equity is valuable.

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Originally Posted by oarsman

I played a fair amount against aluren over the last few days. My practice shows that the straight BUG version is not nearly as hard as I thought, but the recruiter builds are very difficult. Someone told me this was the reverse of their findings. I don't know what to think now.

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Recruiter version is more annoying IMO because they can just value-chain their Recruiters so Terminus does "less."

Why is there all this talk about boarding in surgical vs Shardless. I was talking about bringing it in vs Aluren!

I love Surgical Extraction, and I was convinced I boarded it in way more liberally than anyone else.

But the price has spiked like crazy overnight, and I attribute it to players in this thread boarding it in against the likes of Burn and Shardless. :laugh:

Played against straight BUG Aluren yesterday, 2-0'd it. Granted, the pilot may not have been the best at the deck but he was playing the Recruiter version for a while before just recently switching so it wasn't like he was unfamiliar with the concept.

Countering Aluren is probably the best-percentage play in terms of getting us the W. Then comes countering Parasitic Strix, and then Cavern Harpy. What's always a fun move is Swords'ing their only blue or black creature in response to a Harpy on the stack with Aluren on the field. At one point he had a Leovold (which ended up drawing them 0 cards) and 2 Harpies on the field as well as an Aluren and I had a JTMS. ETA gave me infinite blockers while I slowly ticked up Jace. Like I said before, the BUG "value game" isn't as robust as the Recruiter version's, so it's easier to establish a "lock" against them where they do nothing as you slowly amass blockers (or flip a Terminus) for their weak creatures and countermagic for their combo pieces and tick up Jace for the win. With the Recruiter combo, our Terminuses are worse, though ETA blockers are still live. But with the Recruiter version they can rely less on turning creatures sideways to beat us, whereas with BUG they either combo or play a bad midrange deck, and we eat bad midrange for breakfast.

Day 2 top 100:

Deck	# of copies
Miracles	17
BUG Delver	12
SnS	10
DnT	9
Elves	6
Infect	6
4c Delver	5
Omnitell	4
BR Reanimator	3
4c "Goodstuff"(?)	3
Shardless BUG	3
Stage Depths	2
Burn	2
ANT	2
Eldrazi	2
Lands	2
All others	22

A pretty poorly designed graph:

http://media.wizards.com/2017/events...game-graph.jpg

A good sign for us, but not a good sign for us.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

A good sign for us, but not a good sign for us.

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Yeah, you guys better not get Top banned:wink:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

Day 2 top 100:

Deck	# of copies
Miracles	17
BUG Delver	12
SnS	10
DnT	9
Elves	6
Infect	6
4c Delver	5
Omnitell	4
BR Reanimator	3
4c "Goodstuff"(?)	3
Shardless BUG	3
Stage Depths	2
Burn	2
ANT	2
Eldrazi	2
Lands	2
All others	22

A pretty poorly designed graph:

http://media.wizards.com/2017/events...game-graph.jpg

A good sign for us, but not a good sign for us.

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Only one miracles deck made top 8, so that's a bad/good sign for us.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hey Anuraag,
Congratulation for your finish :)

Did you stick on your 4 predicts list ?
I'm very curious about the 75 you had registered :tongue:

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Originally Posted by Discus

Hey Anuraag,
Congratulation for your finish :)

Did you stick on your 4 predicts list ?
I'm very curious about the 75 you had registered :tongue:

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Yeah, he played the 4 predicts.

He was 11-2, losing the last 2 rounds, to the mirror and to SnT :(

Wilson Hunter got 12-3, good for 23th I believe.

Congrats to all Miracle representatives at Louisville!

Looks like all you need is 2 Volcanic Islands... RIP to our favorite Top spinner, basic Mountain :tongue:



Edit: I've been meaning to ask earlier, but has anyone else been suspicious of MTGO shuffler? At an alarmingly high frequency, when I Spin -> Fetch -> Spin, I seem to get the same 3 cards on top of my deck. Similarly, when I Ponder and shuffle, I'll draw one of the same three cards. I'm not sure if I'm being paranoid, but just curious if anyone else has been running into the same effect.

I have been feeling that I redrew the same card off Ponder shuffles at an unusually high frequency lately. I was thinking that the first card was sticking and the rest of the deck was shuffling. I didn't say anything because it was so likely that I was only noticing the times when it happened and forgetting each time it worked correctly. I am not convinced it happens, but definitely suspicious.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Discus

Hey Anuraag,
Congratulation for your finish :)

Did you stick on your 4 predicts list ?
I'm very curious about the 75 you had registered :tongue:

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Sadly I did not perform as well as I wished. I was 14-4 over the weekend (5-0'd a grinder, 11-4 main event with 2 byes), which maintains consistent with my ~75% win rate. I ended up playing my 4 predict list:

4 Top, Brainstorm, Ponder, Predict, STP, Terminus, FOW
3 Counterbalance
2 JTMS, ETA, SCM
1 CJ, CS, EE
20L

3 Flusterstorm
2 REB, Pyro, Surgical, W/T
1 Mountain, FTA, CPriest, EE

Grinder:
R1 - Lands (WIN 2:0)
R2 - SNT (WIN 2:0)
R3 - Junk PW (WIN 2:1)
R4 - DNT (WIN 2:0)
R5 - Mirror (WIN 2:0)

Main Event:
R1 - Bye
R2 - Bye
R3 - SNT (WIN 2:1)
R4 - Grixis Delver (WIN 2:0)
R5 - Grixis Delver (WIN 2:1)
R6 - BUG "Malimujo" Delver (WIN 2:0)
R7 - 4C "Jarvus" Delver by Denis Ulanov (WIN 2:1)
R8 - Infect (LOSS 0:2)
R9 - Miracles by Lawrence Harmon (WIN 2:0)
R10 - Miracles (WIN 2:1)
R11 - Mono R Stompy (WIN 2:1)
R12 - BUG Stifle Delver by Paolo Cesari (LOSS 1:2)
R13 - DNT (WIN 2:1)
R14 - Miracles by Kyles Boggemes (LOSS 1:2)
R15 - SNT by Adam Jansen (LOSS 1:2)

I think a better player would have made top 8. In my R12 and R15 losses, I had the cards to win but made the wrong plays. My other losses involved games where my deck imploded, which is just Magic - it happens.

I am fairly certain the ponder shuffle is broke on Mtgo. I don't have any statistics but I honestly believe it's more than 70% when I shuffle I redraw the card I put on top. I often put a one off on top, just to test and I draw it so often.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Quasim0ff

I am fairly certain the ponder shuffle is broke on Mtgo. I don't have any statistics but I honestly believe it's more than 70% when I shuffle I redraw the card I put on top. I often put a one off on top, just to test and I draw it so often.

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On a related note, I noticed something similar with Courser of Kruphix and a Fetchland in play.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Quasim0ff

I am fairly certain the ponder shuffle is broke on Mtgo. I don't have any statistics but I honestly believe it's more than 70% when I shuffle I redraw the card I put on top. I often put a one off on top, just to test and I draw it so often.

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I think even fetchlands have the same problem. Really annoying when you're trying to shuffle away a card but it keeps popping up in your top 3 after shuffling. I wouldn't say it was as high as 70% but it happens frequently enough to make you think something is up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by princeofperasia

Edit: I've been meaning to ask earlier, but has anyone else been suspicious of MTGO shuffler? At an alarmingly high frequency, when I Spin -> Fetch -> Spin, I seem to get the same 3 cards on top of my deck. Similarly, when I Ponder and shuffle, I'll draw one of the same three cards. I'm not sure if I'm being paranoid, but just curious if anyone else has been running into the same effect.

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Not a MTGO nor Miracles player, but I watch oarsman79 stream. It's been driving me a little nuts lately - I'm convinced the deck doesn't shuffle on certain occasions, as the top 3 don't change at all. I know that's not unlikely to happen, but seeing it several times over the course of a few hour is very suspicious.

Just a brief little report from Louisville. I finished 11-4 in 75th place, good for 2 pps. I didn't really make any specific metagame decisions and ended up playing a list I was extremely comfortable with. I attribute my losses to getting a bit unlucky and keeping exceptionally greedy hands versus infect. Overall, I think I played pretty greedily all tournament and definitely attribute some of my losses versus Delver to greedy plays. That said i think i played pretty tight in a lot of other games and spots. Matchups were:

R1: Bye
R2: Bye
R3: 2-0 vs ANT
R4: 1-2 vs BUG Midrange
R5: 2-1 vs Mono Red Sneak Attack
R6: 2-0 vs Death and taxes
R7: 2-0 vs Food Chain
R8: 1-2 vs BUG Delver
R9: 2-1 vs RG Lands
R10: 2-0 vs Miracles
R11: 2-1 vs Grixis Delver
R12: 0-2 vs Sneak and Show
R13: 2-0 vs Miracles
R14: 0-2 vs Infect
R15: 2-0 vs Bant Stoneblade

List I played was:
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
2 Arid Mesa
2 Plains
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
3 Ponder
2 Counterspell
2 Entreat the Angels
1 Council's Judgment
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Jace the Mind Sculptor
1 Engineered Explosives

3 Flusterstorm
2 Back to Basics
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Wear Tear
1 Moat
1 Red Elemental Blast

Highlights of the weekend were crushing Vintage side events with UW Landstill, hanging out with fellow Miracles players/Magic players all weekend, and two egregious punts by my r7 food chain opponent that cost him the game up to and including missing an Emrakul Annhilator trigger.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oarsman

I have been feeling that I redrew the same card off Ponder shuffles at an unusually high frequency lately. I was thinking that the first card was sticking and the rest of the deck was shuffling. I didn't say anything because it was so likely that I was only noticing the times when it happened and forgetting each time it worked correctly. I am not convinced it happens, but definitely suspicious.

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It happens a fairly high amount to me, too. Enough so that if I want to shuffle off of a Ponder, I'll still put the card I most want to see on top. More often than randomness would suggest (I think? Humans are notoriously terrible at this kind of stuff since we look for patterns where there aren't any), I get that top card.

I haven't said anything until now, but I've been thinking about it a lot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oarsman

I have been feeling that I redrew the same card off Ponder shuffles at an unusually high frequency lately. I was thinking that the first card was sticking and the rest of the deck was shuffling. I didn't say anything because it was so likely that I was only noticing the times when it happened and forgetting each time it worked correctly. I am not convinced it happens, but definitely suspicious.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Quasim0ff

I am fairly certain the ponder shuffle is broke on Mtgo. I don't have any statistics but I honestly believe it's more than 70% when I shuffle I redraw the card I put on top. I often put a one off on top, just to test and I draw it so often.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by MXG

It happens a fairly high amount to me, too. Enough so that if I want to shuffle off of a Ponder, I'll still put the card I most want to see on top. More often than randomness would suggest (I think? Humans are notoriously terrible at this kind of stuff since we look for patterns where there aren't any), I get that top card.

I haven't said anything until now, but I've been thinking about it a lot.

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I went ahead and tested the shuffler in solitaire mode for two games with a deck designed to do nothing but cantrip into Ponder and Portent, and I feel pretty confident in saying that at least in solitaire mode, Ponder and Portent both work as intended.

http://i.imgur.com/BWkgmIH.jpg

I recorded the three cards I stacked with Ponder or Portent, as well as the number of copies of that card remaining in my library in parentheses. I shuffled on every instance and recorded the card drawn off the "blind" Ponder or Portent. In all eleven occasions, I drew a different card than the one stacked on top, and it does not appear that I am any more likely to drop the middle or bottom card either.

	Cantrip Cast	Top Card	Middle Card	Bottom Card	Card Drawn
Game 1	Ponder	Preordain (2)	Serum Visions (4)	Gush (4)	Treasure Cruise
Game 1	Ponder	Serum Visions (4)	Portent (4)	Portent (4)	Scalding Tarn
Game 1	Ponder	Dig Through Time (3)	Gush (4)	Gush (4)	Gush
Game 1	Portent	Flooded Strand (1)	Tundra (1)	Dig Through Time (3)	Treasure Cruise
Game 2	Ponder	Gush (4)	Volcanic Island (1)	Flooded Strand (3)	Flooded Strand
Game 2	Ponder	Gush (4)	Scalding Tarn (3)	Scalding Tarn (3)	Gitaxian Probe
Game 2	Portent	Underground Sea (1)	Preordain (3)	Dig Through Time (3)	Serum Visions
Game 2	Portent	Polluted Delta (2)	Serum Visions (3)	Cruise (3)	Preordain
Game 2	Portent	Underground Sea (1)	Serum Visions (2)	Dig Through Time (2)	Polluted Delta
Game 2	Portent	Ponder (2)	Gush (3)	Serum Visions (3)	Scalding Tarn
Game 2	Ponder	Thought Scour (2)	Treasure Cruise (1)	Gush (1)	Brainstorm

Also, I want my tickets that I wasted on Serum Visions back. :mad:

http://i.imgur.com/jdmwYW3.gif

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hyp3r1on

Just a brief little report from Louisville. I finished 11-4 in 75th place, good for 2 pps. I didn't really make any specific metagame decisions and ended up playing a list I was extremely comfortable with. I attribute my losses to getting a bit unlucky and keeping exceptionally greedy hands versus infect. Overall, I think I played pretty greedily all tournament and definitely attribute some of my losses versus Delver to greedy plays. That said i think i played pretty tight in a lot of other games and spots. Matchups were:

R1: Bye
R2: Bye
R3: 2-0 vs ANT
R4: 1-2 vs BUG Midrange
R5: 2-1 vs Mono Red Sneak Attack
R6: 2-0 vs Death and taxes
R7: 2-0 vs Food Chain
R8: 1-2 vs BUG Delver
R9: 2-1 vs RG Lands
R10: 2-0 vs Miracles
R11: 2-1 vs Grixis Delver
R12: 0-2 vs Sneak and Show
R13: 2-0 vs Miracles
R14: 0-2 vs Infect
R15: 2-0 vs Bant Stoneblade

List I played was:
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
2 Arid Mesa
2 Plains
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
3 Ponder
2 Counterspell
2 Entreat the Angels
1 Council's Judgment
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Jace the Mind Sculptor
1 Engineered Explosives

3 Flusterstorm
2 Back to Basics
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Wear Tear
1 Moat
1 Red Elemental Blast

Highlights of the weekend were crushing Vintage side events with UW Landstill, hanging out with fellow Miracles players/Magic players all weekend, and two egregious punts by my r7 food chain opponent that cost him the game up to and including missing an Emrakul Annhilator trigger.

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Congrats! Its a beautiful list. How does it feel cutting a playset of ponder to 3, any specific reasons cause Phillip has been pushing for it intensely.

http://www.mtgmintcard.com/articles/...and-prix-chiba

Do you feel it has any effect on the game play?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mike1987

Congrats! Its a beautiful list. How does it feel cutting a playset of ponder to 3, any specific reasons cause Phillip has been pushing for it intensely.

http://www.mtgmintcard.com/articles/...and-prix-chiba

Do you feel it has any effect on the game play?

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In my GP Columbus Top 8 list, I ran 4 Ponders and have been playing 4 Ponders until up to about a month ago. Running only 3 definitely cuts into the overall consistency of the deck, but I won and top 8d a few 1ks leading up to the GP with this build so I felt reasonably comfortable with it. The idea was that I wanted to make room for both EE and Council's Judgment as I was expecting a lot of DNT/Chalice decks/Leovolds etc. All of those strategies really punish durdling around with cantrips. I fundamentally agree with Philip that it's wrong not to run a full suite of Ponders, so in that sense I don't think I was playing an optimized list. Between now and GP Vegas I'll definitely be putting in the time to coming up with a list and trying different things. I absolutely think 4 Ponders is where people should be at in non-Legends builds.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hyp3r1on

I absolutely think 4 Ponders is where people should be at in non-Legends builds.

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My MD list is very, very similar to yours -1 Volc -1 Jace +1 Karakas +1 Clique. I'm not sure what is meant by the quoted statement but often I find the 4-Ponder list to spend a little too much time cantripping (so I guess that's what you mean by going to 3 in a Legends build since you could be replacing the Ponder with pressure). I think if you run Mentor as your main (maybe supplemented with 1-of ETA) MD wincon then yea 4-Ponder is where you want to be. But I don't think limiting yourself by saying that if you're not playing a strict Legends build that you MUST be running 4 Ponder is correct.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

I went ahead and tested the shuffler in solitaire mode for two games with a deck designed to do nothing but cantrip into Ponder and Portent, and I feel pretty confident in saying that at least in solitaire mode, Ponder and Portent both work as intended.

http://i.imgur.com/BWkgmIH.jpg

I recorded the three cards I stacked with Ponder or Portent, as well as the number of copies of that card remaining in my library in parentheses. I shuffled on every instance and recorded the card drawn off the "blind" Ponder or Portent. In all eleven occasions, I drew a different card than the one stacked on top, and it does not appear that I am any more likely to drop the middle or bottom card either.

	Cantrip Cast	Top Card	Middle Card	Bottom Card	Card Drawn
Game 1	Ponder	Preordain (2)	Serum Visions (4)	Gush (4)	Treasure Cruise
Game 1	Ponder	Serum Visions (4)	Portent (4)	Portent (4)	Scalding Tarn
Game 1	Ponder	Dig Through Time (3)	Gush (4)	Gush (4)	Gush
Game 1	Portent	Flooded Strand (1)	Tundra (1)	Dig Through Time (3)	Treasure Cruise
Game 2	Ponder	Gush (4)	Volcanic Island (1)	Flooded Strand (3)	Flooded Strand
Game 2	Ponder	Gush (4)	Scalding Tarn (3)	Scalding Tarn (3)	Gitaxian Probe
Game 2	Portent	Underground Sea (1)	Preordain (3)	Dig Through Time (3)	Serum Visions
Game 2	Portent	Polluted Delta (2)	Serum Visions (3)	Cruise (3)	Preordain
Game 2	Portent	Underground Sea (1)	Serum Visions (2)	Dig Through Time (2)	Polluted Delta
Game 2	Portent	Ponder (2)	Gush (3)	Serum Visions (3)	Scalding Tarn
Game 2	Ponder	Thought Scour (2)	Treasure Cruise (1)	Gush (1)	Brainstorm

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Test in non-solitaire mode? Like in a playtest lobby or something?

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

But I don't think limiting yourself by saying that if you're not playing a strict Legends build that you MUST be running 4 Ponder is correct.

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This is most likely true, it's just something I haven't devoted a lot of thought to post-GP.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hyp3r1on

In my GP Columbus Top 8 list, I ran 4 Ponders and have been playing 4 Ponders until up to about a month ago. Running only 3 definitely cuts into the overall consistency of the deck, but I won and top 8d a few 1ks leading up to the GP with this build so I felt reasonably comfortable with it. The idea was that I wanted to make room for both EE and Council's Judgment as I was expecting a lot of DNT/Chalice decks/Leovolds etc. All of those strategies really punish durdling around with cantrips. I fundamentally agree with Philip that it's wrong not to run a full suite of Ponders, so in that sense I don't think I was playing an optimized list. Between now and GP Vegas I'll definitely be putting in the time to coming up with a list and trying different things. I absolutely think 4 Ponders is where people should be at in non-Legends builds.

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Thanks for your explanation. I was thinking maybe cutting down ponders can also help hedge against chalice of the void, since there are so many running around these days, one less dead card in your hand. I have been experimenting between cadei's list but somehow 20 lands seemed too little or that i am not the miracles master he is. I feel that the correct number is 21 but the card slots are really tight. What would you advise cutting?

Creatures [5]
2 Monastery Mentor
3 Snapcaster Mage

Instants [14]

2 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

Sorceries [10]
1 Council's Judgment
1 Entreat the Angels
4 Ponder
4 Terminus

Enchantments [4]
4 Counterbalance

Planeswalkers [2]
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Artifacts [5]
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Sensei's Divining Top

Lands [20]
1 Arid Mesa
2 Plains
3 Island
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta

Hello guys,

I'm fairly new to the deck, as it's just a couple months since I picked it up. I'd like to ask you some questions, as you're all more experienced than me and for sure you can help me improve and understand more the deck. I'm sorry in advance if this is nothing new to you or it's something you find trivial.


- First of all I'd like to ask you why nobody doesn't play anymore the Daze version that let Claudio Bonanni lift the trophy in Lille. It seems to me that Daze could be pretty good right now, as the meta develops around highly costed spells, such as True Name Nemesis, Leovold, Show and Tell, Aluren, Sneak Attack. Also it seems to have and edge in the mirror. What's the reason behind it's disappearence from decklists?

- Second, what do you think about BBD's Louisville list? I'm asking that because the list seems really different from the ones I can lurk in this thread. No Entreat, no Council, full set of Ponder, just 2 Jaces and a total of 3 Mentors. Do you think it's a solid choice? What are its benefits compared to a stock list with EtA, Council, Predict, 0-2 Mentors?

Thanks a lot and sorry if you got botherd or bored reading my post :smile:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hyp3r1on

This is most likely true, it's just something I haven't devoted a lot of thought to post-GP.

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I piloted my 3-Ponder-Hybrid list to 6-3-left round 10 to go home early at EW NA 2016. I never found myself wanting the 4th Ponder in any of the rounds I lost. I do think at 2 is too few, but 3 or 4 really comes down to the pilot's preference with what direction they want to take their build in.